PEOPLE giving freely of their time is vital to the running of the hospice.

"We rely on about 150 Kemp volunteers," said John Fletcher. "Without them, we wouldn't have a service.

"That includes collecting and bringing patients in, so we have volunteer drivers. We have volunteer carers who help the nurses with feeding and just supporting the patients when they're here.

"We have people helping with administering fund raising.

"Volunteering can take many forms. We try to make sure that if somebody wants to come along and give us a couple of hours a week we try and accommodate them. We never turn them away.

"We try to put a square peg into a square hole.

"Without that bank of volunteers behind us we would never maintain our service, so they provide an invaluable service to the hospice."